Wikis as an Individual, Group, and Class Space: Exploring Students’ Perceptions

Liping Deng
Sandy LI
Jan CONNELLY

Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong

 

Abstract:

In the past decade, the Internet has witnessed a new trend of Web 2.0 technologies characterized by user participation and collective intelligence. There is a growing interest in applying Web 2.0 technologies for pedagogical purposes due to the obvious alignment between their essential features and a socio-cultural learning perspective. As a popular and flexible Web 2.0 tool, wikis can afford individual authorship, group authorship, and collaboration among students. Yet, there is still a dearth of studies that systematically design and implement wikis in an effort to examine how students learn through participation.

The present study reports a case study of using wikis in an undergraduate course at Hong Kong. Wikis were designed, implemented, and evaluated as individual space (for individual content creation), group space (for group collaboration and interaction), and class space (for the instructor to share course materials and resources). In particular, the study focuses on students’ perceptions of wiki and the reasons behind their varying levels of online engagement. This study will extend our understanding in relation to how wikis can be designed and implemented more effectively in support of various learning needs.